Impact
by Toasterman
Summary: Life is harsh in the Capital Wasteland, and no one knows that better than Amber King. From slave to scavenger, from bodyguard to bounty hunter, she'll do anything to stay alive, and continue her quest for vengeance amid the shattered remains of America.
1. Prologue

**_FALLOUT__:_ Impact**

Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Super Mutants

**Prologue: Massacre at Clifftown**

The mole rat ambled out of its burrow, the morning light splashing across its ugly features. Its eyes, small and designed for seeing in subterranean environments, shrunk at the sudden brightness about it. The light hurt, but eventually the mole rat got over it and started down the slope from its home, beginning what would be a long day of rummaging and fighting for food.

Taking a liking to a strange shrub at the foot of the hill, the mole rat began some tentative sniffing with its whiskered snout. After a couple of seconds of checking the shrub, it identified what looked like some kind of berry hanging from one of the branches. Or what passed for a berry in the irradiated hell surrounding the mole rat.

It had just begun to nip at the berry when a rifle crack split the air, soon followed by a .32 caliber bullet sinking into the mole rat's head.

Amber King lowered her hunting rifle. The mole rat had caught her shot right above the eye, splitting its skull and tossing it sideways into the dirt.

"Nice shot, hon," Joshua said from where he crouched on the rocky slope next to her, "Little bastard's been eluding me for days."

"Thanks," she told her husband. She slung the rifle over her shoulder and started down the incline they had perched on. The mole rat's burrow had been in one side of a small canyon that lay below the shanty town she and Joshua called home. "I don't think he saw us coming."

Joshua followed her down, his boots sliding on the loose pebbles. "They never do when you're out here."

She stopped and turned back to look at him. "What are you doing?"

"What?" he asked, feigning innocence.

"What's up with all these compliments? It wasn't that spectacular. I just shot a mole rat. Besides, it isn't like-" she stopped, realizing what was going on, "Are you trying to get in my pants?"

Joshua's lips split into a grin. He moved in and wrapped one arm around her waist as he flipped a stray strand of hair out of her face. "So? What's the matter with that?"

"We're three feet from a dead mutant rat," she said.

"So coming on to you is bad now?"

"No, but this isn't all that romantic," she explained, "Wait till we get home."

A devious grin spread over Joshua's features as she pulled away. "Well, okay then."

Amber knelt down next to the dead mole rat. Blood was leaking from its punctured head and staining the ground beneath it, the puddle growing across the uneven ground. The creature smelled like shit, and from experience she knew that when cooked it wouldn't get much better. But food was food, and neither she nor her husband was going to pass it up.

Joshua pulled out his combat knife and offered it to Amber. She accepted the weapon and ran it along the mole rat's throat, spilling warm blood across her fingers. To some it would have seemed a futile action, considering the thing had taken a bullet to the head, but Amber knew as well as any wastelander that dead looking things weren't necessarily dead. Hell, one gander at a ghoul could convince anyone of that.

"Its dead," she muttered, "Okay, go ahead."

Joshua stared at her for a second, then shook his head and grabbed the mole rat around the stomach. "Why am I always the one carrying it?" he grumbled, hefting the dead animal over one shoulder.

"I'm sorry. I thought you got a kick out of being the big strong man," Amber joked, sliding his knife back into its sheath at his side.

"It's not that," he replied, "But would it kill you to pull your own weight?"

"All this complaining is just getting you further and further away from that nookie."

"Shutting up."

Amber laughed as they crested the rise and entered the trio of shacks that constituted Clifftown. As its name implied, Clifftown was surrounded on three sides by sheer cliffs, making the lone entryway the earthen ramp to the south of the town. It was a good defensible position, and if needed the inhabitants could hold out for quite some time against a raider attack.

Thankfully, the settlement's small size and out-of-the-way demeanor kept the actual conflicts down to a minimum. It also sat well out of the way of any caravan trade routes, another feature that made it appealing to the Kings.

Amber and Joshua had been married for six years, the first two of which were spent as slaves in what used to be Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, now known as the Pitt. They had escaped during a massive breakout attempt, and as far as they knew, no one else had made it. The escapees who were caught were tortured for seven days before being executed.

So if staying out of slavery meant less fresh food from the caravans, then so be it. And if any slavers did happen by who recognized them…well, the folks of Clifftown looked out for one another.

"Howdy Mr. King, Mrs. King," called Old Man Burns from his front porch.

Amber waved to him. "How's it going?"

"Same old, same old," Burns replied, adjusting his combat shotgun where it sat on his lap, "No one's coming, no one's going."

"That's just fine," Joshua put in.

Old Man Burns nodded in agreement and turned his attention to the wasteland sunrise, getting back to his self-appointed job of watching the perimeter. His wife, Agnes, had passed on about a year after Amber and Joshua had arrived. Since then he'd developed a bit of a drinking problem, something that was sure to mess with his aim. Burns knew this, however, and compensated for it by using a shotgun.

They passed by the second shack in town and waved to Bobby Shorten, the six year old who lived with his single mother.

"Hey Mr. King!" Bobby called from where he was loading his BB gun, "Momma wants to know if you can take a look at the generator later!"

"Tell her I'll be over after breakfast!" Joshua called back.

Bobby nodded and ran inside the house, letting his BB gun fall to the porch planks behind him. Amber looped her arm around her husband's midsection, embracing him as they walked the last few steps to the door of their own shack.

Joshua shifted the dead mole rat to his other shoulder and fished the key out of his pocket. He unlocked the door and swung it open, letting a column of light in on the darkened interior. They stepped through together, arm in arm, and only separated when the door had squeaked shut behind them. Amber unlimbered her hunting rifle and leaned it up against the doorframe, then pulled off her vest and tossed it on the bed.

Joshua set their catch down on the kitchen table, which aside from a generator, bed and dresser, was the only thing in the small dwelling. "Okay," he said, turning around, "Ready to eat-"

Amber smiled as he stopped dead in his tracks, watching as his eyes fell on her bare legs and the cotton pants bunched up at her ankles. She still wore her tattered shirt, but that would be off in just a few more seconds.

"Well?" she asked, "You kept dropping hints earlier. So, are we going to go for it? Or were you just blowing hot air?"

Joshua smiled and grabbed her by the shoulders. "Oh, I was dead serious."

He leaned in and their lips met in a gentle kiss, one of the things Amber loved about their relationship. He ran one hand through her hair while the other traveled down her chest. His fingers slipped under her shirt and had just begun to pull it up when a combat shotgun went off outside.

Joshua stopped, instantly dropping Amber's shirt. She watched as he opened the door, snatching up her hunting rifle at the same time. She pulled her pants up, her thoughts of love making vanishing as an inhuman roar grated against her ears. It was deep, throaty, and had more in common with an explosion than any cry she had ever heard.

The door flew open completely as Joshua brought the hunting rifle up to his shoulder and fired. Amber peeked over his shoulder and saw the bullet collide with sickly yellowish flesh in a plume of red. The monster Joshua had hit flinched at the impact, but otherwise seemed unharmed. It held Old Man Burns around the throat with one massive fist, choking the elderly man with ease.

It roared again and threw Burns across the main street of the town, his frail body breaking against the side of the Shortens' shack. The monster brought a Chinese assault rifle to bear and fired, the bullets panging off the shack wall near Joshua's head. Amber ducked out of the way, pulling her husband with her, as more rounds streamed through the open doorway and punched through the thinner parts of the wall, shredding the kitchen table as well as the dead mole rat resting upon it.

"What is that?" she asked.

"A Super Mutant," Joshua answered, racking the bolt on the hunting rifle, "Let's just hope it's alone."

"HUMAN! THERE ARE…uh…six? Yeah. SIX OF US!" bellowed the Super Mutant, "So come on out, stupid…HUMAN!"

Amber thudded her head against the tin wall. "Wonderful."

Outside, she could hear a door open and footsteps on the wooden front porch of the Shorten household, followed by a voice. "We don't mean you any harm!" Amber recognized the voice as belonging to Sheila Shorten, Bobby's mother. "Please, let us go! We don't want to-"

Suddenly, Sheila screamed, cutting herself off mid-sentence. Amber peeked out of a bullet hole in the wall and watched as the first Super Mutant grabbed Sheila off of her porch and tossed her back to one of its friends; one of seven more that had arrived. Aside from this amount of reinforcements telling her that the Super Mutant couldn't count correctly, it also made the situation much harder to squeeze out of.

"HAHAHA! Stupid female," shouted the first one, "Call Tyler up here. He will WANT TO SEE HER!!"

Another of the Super Mutants started back off down the hill to get whoever this Tyler was. Just as he disappeared from sight, however, the door to the Shorten house burst open again. Bobby ran out into the street brandishing a kitchen knife held like a sword. He waved it at the nearest Super Mutant, a yellow skinned monster carrying a minigun.

"Let my momma go!" he commanded, threatening the monster with his knife, "Or else!"

"Bobby, get back inside. Get back inside," Joshua whispered.

"HA! HA! OR ELSE! HAHAHA!" the minigun mutant laughed.

Without hesitation, Bobby ran his knife into the Super Mutant's exposed kneecap, forcing it in all the way to the hilt. The Super Mutant roared and squeezed the trigger on his minigun, bringing the barrels up to speed.

Bobby started to turn to run away, but never made it a step. A hail of 5mm rounds ripped his little body to paste, spreading him out across the dirt path like icing on a cake. Amber screamed despite herself, and as the minigun toting Super Mutant looked over to see what had made the noise, he caught one of Joshua's .32 rounds in the eye.

Bobby's killer groaned and fell to the ground, his massive body sending a seismic thud through the town. Amber saw another of the mutants turn toward their position through her peephole, a super sledge held in its grip. Joshua looked over at her, still reloading for another shot. His blue eyes were open wide, and for the first time in a long time, Amber saw that her husband was afraid.

"Get under the bed!" he ordered, "Stay down and be quiet!"

She wanted to tell him no, wanted to stand and fight, but couldn't bring herself to say anything. Instead, her legs moved her onto the ground and under the bed. She pressed herself up against the wall and curled up into the fetal position. She felt heavy thuds as the Super Mutant charged their shack, its footfalls rattling the thin walls.

Joshua fired, the light crack of the rifle quickly followed by a ting and a whistle as the bullet skipped off another shack; a clear miss. The bolt came back and a shell casing fell down into her view, landing next to his worn work boots. He pushed it forward, but from the sound of it, the weapon was jammed.

She heard Joshua curse under his breath, then a bone crushing crash as the super sledge met his ribcage. Joshua flew across the room and landed on his back, blood frothing from his lips. The hunting rifle landed next to the bed, its stock coming to rest less than a foot away from Amber's grip. The Super Mutant's leather boots appeared in the shack and its shadow fell across Joshua's tiny form.

Amber watched the mutant's silhouette as it brought the super sledge up for a final killing blow. She reached for the hunting rifle, fingers brushing the wooden butt.

"No."

Her eyes jumped to Joshua, locking with his own. They weren't afraid anymore, just concerned. He shook his head, silently repeating the plea. Slowly, reluctantly, she pulled her hand back, retracting it all the way to her chest. Joshua smiled at her, his face somehow retaining some normalcy despite the bleeding. Amber smiled back at her husband and slowly mouthed 'I love you.'

"DIE STUPID HUMAN!"

And then the super sledge broke his head into eighty-seven pieces and splattered the wooden floor with blood, brain and chunks of skull. An eyeball rolled under the bed and came to rest inches from Amber's face, causing her to cover her mouth to keep her whimpers from giving away her position. The Super Mutant started laughing as it brought its weapon down again and again on Joshua's corpse, each strike bashing out more blood than the last.

"KILL THE HUMAN! KILL THE HUMAN! KILL THE HUMAN!" it shouted in a poor attempt at singing.

Amber remained still, sobbing silently as her husband's blood sprayed under the bed and covered her in a slick layer of gore. As she lay there, she couldn't shake the feeling that this wasn't the last time she would be covered in blood that wasn't her own.

And she was right.

_To Be Continued_

**Author's Note: Hey, thanks for reading. I do have to clarify a couple of things about this before we go any further. Firstly, Amber is not a vault dweller. Never has been, never will be, because as a fanfiction writer, it is my duty to tell stories within the world of a fandom that are _original_. Secondly, this does take place in and around the Capital Wasteland area, mostly because I played Fallout 3 first and like it the best, though I did do plenty of background research for this. I'll stop wasting your time now, as this could get very long-winded. If you want more Fallout talk, including a fun little rant about why all you ghoul-sex-fic fans are decrepit fuckheads, go check out my profile page. Otherwise, please leave a review. I'd love to know your thoughts. Good, bad, or otherwise.**


	2. Chapter 1

_FALLOUT: _**Impact**

Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Random Encounters

**Chapter 1: Enter Crow**

Morning was finally breaking over the eastern horizon when Crow first spotted Clifftown. The trio of shacks was silhouetted by the rising sun, and Crow thought he could smell something on the breeze drifting down from the cliffs. It was recognizable immediately as death, a smell that every wastelander got to know early on in life.

"Whew," muttered Hoskins from where he was walking drag on their small caravan, "I can smell that from here."

Crow, holding his pack Brahmin's reigns in one hand, led the animal behind a nearby boulder. "Keep her here," he told Hoskins, passing the mercenary the reigns, "I'm going up to check it out."

"You sure that's a good idea? You know, splitting up and everything?" Hoskins asked, "With those Super Mutant tracks we saw coming in, there could be an ambush up there. Easy."

"And if there is, I've got a better chance of escaping alone than with you and the animal with me," Crow countered.

Hoskins thought about that. "Yeah, you've got a point."

"I know I do," Crow replied, unlimbering his R99 assault rifle from where it hung over his shoulder, "I scream and you start moving south. I'll meet up with you under that old tramway. Clear?"

Hoskins nodded. "Yeah, clear."

Crow gave one last good-natured pat to one of the Brahmin's heads and started off toward Clifftown. He hadn't bothered mentioning what Hoskins would do should he not show up at the tramway in a reasonable time. It went without saying that if he didn't show, Hoskins would take his Brahmin and start peddling the goods himself, so Crow would make sure he didn't scream without a good reason.

Clifftown had no easy access for travelers coming from the west, which meant that Crow was going to have to climb the rocky slope. Reluctantly, he slung his rifle, turned his ball cap around and stepped up to the cliff, hands reaching out for easy handholds.

A long time ago, in a different life than the one he had now, Crow had been a struggling tribal in what used to be New York. Back then, he had climbed through the toppled remains of skyscrapers, using the exposed rebar and steel supports as balancing points from which to hunt other human beings. It had been nearly twenty years since he'd abandoned that life, moved to the Capital Wasteland and started trading armor to the citizens of the wastes.

However, that instinct for climbing had never left him, and as he started up the sheer cliff face, he was glad that it hadn't. He dug his fingers into cracks in the stone and pressed his boots against smooth rock, pulling and pushing his way up. When he finally reached the top, he crouched at the edge of the town, bringing his assault rifle out again.

He turned his cap back around and moved toward the rear of the nearest shack in a crouch, stepping quickly across the broken ground. He eased up against the tin outer wall and peeked out from the corner with one eye, surveying the center of town.

A single dirt path ran up the center, beginning at an earthen ramp towards the south and running between two other rusted shacks before ending at the doorstep of the one Crow was now hiding behind. The smell of death was stronger here, though it seemed the dead had been recently buried. A small cemetery was set off to one side of the path, three stick-crosses marking the recently made graves.

Though the existence of the cemetery didn't destroy the possibility of a Super Mutant attack, it did point one thing out. In all of Crow's travels, he had never known Super Mutants to make graves, for their own kind or the many humans they killed. So if they had attacked, as the dried blood on the path and bullet holes in the buildings indicated, then someone had to have survived to make the graves.

Crow felt the cool steel of a rifle barrel suddenly present at the back of his head, pressing down on the flesh at the base of his skull. He felt a flutter of fear for a second, but after the bullet didn't come, he relaxed. If the gunman wanted him dead, he would be dead by now. But he wasn't, so they had an agenda besides death in mind for him.

"Put the gun down," a female voice instructed.

Crow actually thought she sounded kind of nice, but not nice enough for him to put down his gun. In fact, he wasn't so sure there was one voice in the entire world that was nice enough for him to put his gun down.

"If you want to talk, then we can talk," he explained, "Either with me kneeling right here and you behind me with that rifle, or with both of us standing and exchanging handshakes. But in either case, my gun is staying in my possession, not on the ground. If you really want it down there, you're going to have to kill me."

The lady behind him didn't respond immediately, and the barrel didn't move. Crow knew that he couldn't move and kill her. He considered himself to be pretty quick, but he wasn't nearly stupid enough to think he could spin fast enough to beat a bullet. She was in complete control over if he lived or died in the next few seconds. If he died, then he died, and nothing would change. But at least he hadn't put his gun down.

"Fine. But you're staying down there for now," the voice finally said.

Crow didn't make a sound, but internally, he let out a long sigh. While he was at peace with being killed, he would much have preferred not to be. "Fine."

"Who are you?" she asked.

"The name's Crow," he replied, "I'm a trader, specializing in body armor."

His captor sounded unconvinced. "If you're a trader, then where's your Brahmin? Most traders I've met have Brahmin."

"Around here somewhere, with my bodyguard," Crow answered, keeping the actual location to himself. After all, he wasn't going to give away Hoskins and the Brahmin's position, and he didn't care if she didn't trust him much after that.

"Fine," the lady said, "Now tell me the advantages of not painting the side of this shack with your blood."

"You lived here, and now everyone else is dead. You've got nowhere to go, but I do. And judging by how stupid my current bodyguard is, he'll be dead in a couple of weeks anyway. You were smart enough to sneak up on me, so you could easily be a replacement for Hoskins when he's gone, or at least until we get to somewhere you want to stay. We could help each other out," he explained, "Besides; my blood is a different shade of red than this wall. It just wouldn't mesh."

"This shack used to be my home," she said, her voice sounding less angry then sad.

"And now it ain't," Crow said, "So how about it, kiddo? Am I paint or your new boss?"

The barrel didn't move. "Show me the guy and Brahmin, then I'll join you."

She sounded sincere enough to him. "Okay," he agreed, then turned his head to the west, "Hoskins! Lead the old girl out in the open!"

Seventy yards away and below the cliff, Hoskins appeared from behind the boulder Crow had placed him by. The Brahmin appeared behind him, twin heads looking around as if confused by the world that surrounded it. Hoskins held his shotgun in the air and waved with it, unable to see them in the early morning shadow cast by the shack.

After a full minute, the barrel was lifted from Crow's neck. "Can I get up now?" he asked.

"Sure."

Crow stood up and turned to face his former captor. She looked to be in her mid-twenties and wore pants and a loose fitting shirt, both made of cotton. Her hair hung down to just above her shoulders, framing a face that seemed to cradle her intense eyes. She seemed sad, which Crow found acceptable considering her entire town was recently massacred. However, she wasn't sad enough to completely lower the hunting rifle in her grip.

"I don't think what just happened can count as a real introduction," he said, trying to break the ice. He held out his hand to her in a gesture of friendship. "Hi, I'm Crow. Nice to meet you."

She looked at it for a long moment, seemingly reluctant to shake with him. Finally, she took his hand and shook it, with more force than he had thought her to be capable of.

"I'm Amber," she said dryly, pale eyes locking with his.

It had been a day since Joshua had been killed. When the Super Mutants left, they took Sheila Shorten along with them to a fate that Amber didn't even want to think about. What they left behind was a destroyed town, with three of its occupants dead. After an hour spent lying completely still under the bed, covered in her dead husband's blood, Amber finally gathered some of her wits about her.

In a state of what she now supposed was shock, she'd gotten a shovel and dug the three graves in the middle of the town. First she put Old Man Burns into the ground, an easy task considering his body was mostly intact. Well, his spine and most of his bones had been squished in the impact that killed him, but aside from that he was easy to move.

Then she scrapped what was left of Bobby Shorten off the ground where he'd been blown apart by one of the Super Mutant's miniguns. His body was put in the second grave, the middle of the three, in what Amber could do to reassemble him. It wasn't much by any real mortician's standards, but she had done as best she could.

She'd put Joshua in last, lowering his body carefully into the third and final grave. She folded his hands across his chest and gave him one last farewell before piling the dirt on all three of the graves. After that, she assembled the crosses out of sticks she'd found lying about the town and shoved them at the head of each plot.

When it was all said and done, she collapsed in the middle of her newly made graveyard and sobbed. She wept for all of them, but mostly for her husband of six years. As the sun finally began to recede behind the western horizon, Amber finished her mourning. The last of her tears fell and were swallowed up by the parched earth.

She had then retreated to her shack for the night, making sure to turn the mattress over to avoid sleeping in the blood that had been splattered there when the Super Mutant mauled Joshua. That night she'd slept deep, rising in the present morning with her body rejuvenated, without the aches of the labor from the day before.

Her mind was still weary and she was still in pain from the loss of her love, and by her figuring she never would get over it. However, she was sure that she would never cry like that ever again, and as she set about packing her belongings into a rucksack, she couldn't avoid the feeling that she might not have much longer to honor that resolution if she didn't get moving.

Clearly she wasn't going to live alone in Clifftown. She'd met men and women who lived alone. Each of them seemed a tad crazy for her tastes and considering what had just happened to her, she didn't think her odds of staying sane in that environment were very high at all. So that left her with the only other option: leave.

She was right in the middle of deciding where to go when Crow showed up and solved her problem for her.

The only land she knew well was the land to the north, up where she and Joshua had come from as escaped slaves. If she went in that direction, she ran the continual risk of being recognized and enslaved again. It had been four years, but the Pitt raiders didn't forget faces, especially the faces of slaves who had slipped right through their fingers.

So that left south, deeper into the Capital Wasteland, an option she would have taken in a heartbeat if it wasn't for her near total lack of knowledge about its geography. But after talking the situation over with Crow for fifteen minutes, things had begun to look up, if only a little bit.

"So, you say it'll be a couple weeks till we get to this Megaton place?" she asked.

Crow nodded. "Yeah, it's down south quite a bit, but it shouldn't take too long if we follow the Potomac," the trader said, tossing her a bundle of leather armor, "Now see if this fits. We need to get moving."

Deep down, Amber knew that she didn't really care if they reached Megaton or not. She just needed to get going somewhere other than here. To move just for the sake of moving, and to get as far away from this place as possible.

She took the offered armor into her old home and pulled it on. It was made, as its name suggested, predominately of leather, but did have several hardened steel plates attached at various points, including the knees, elbows and above one shoulder. The whole getup was held together by an assortment of buckles and straps that gave it a gruff and unwelcoming appearance, which she supposed was the idea.

However, once she had it on and had adjusted the straps, she was surprised to note that it fit her perfectly. Stuffing her old clothes into her rucksack and throwing it over her shoulder opposite Old Man Burn's combat shotgun, she stepped back out of the shack, hunting rifle in hand.

"How's it fit?" Crow asked.

"Fine," she replied, getting her rucksack into a more comfortable position, "You make it?"

"Yes. Most of the leather I sell is personally crafted."

Amber nodded. "We about ready to go?"

"Sure, just as soon as you prove you can hit something with that rifle," Crow said, gesturing to her hunting rifle.

The door to the Shorten's shack banged open and Hoskins stepped out onto the porch, holding a tin can up by his head. "Hey, Crow! Check it out! Pork 'n Beans!"

Amber snapped her rifle up into firing position and squeezed the trigger. The rifle barked and the can blasted apart in Hoskins's hand, splattering the side of his face with the evacuated meaty contents. He jumped in surprise and dropped the destroyed can to the ground, wiping at his cheek to make sure it wasn't he who had been hit.

"There," she said, lowering the weapon again, "Can we go now?"

Crow grinned. "Sure. You're on point," he offered, pointing to the exit of the small town, "Hoskins, get your ass over here and bring up the rear. We're moving out."

Amber led the way out of town, giving one last look at the three graves she'd made before heading down the dirt ramp. She was followed in short order by Crow, who lead his Brahmin by the reigns, and then finally Hoskins, who was already digging into what remained of the Pork 'n Beans he'd found. As they started south, she didn't look back once, and soon Clifftown had descended into the mist of quickly receding memory.

_To Be Continued_


	3. Chapter 2

_FALLOUT: _**Impact**

Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Wasteland

**Chapter 2: Tyler**

Traveling through the wasteland was a tricky affair. The land was vast and desolate, and as a result, it tempted one's mind, slipping them into a false sense of security. If one wasn't careful, they would eventually believe that they were actually alone and therefore safe in the arid hellscape. With that security came boredom, and boredom led to a dulling of the senses.

Typically, it was right at that moment that death would come for the weary traveler, and here in the wastelands, death wore a thousand masks. To Amber, who was now part of the way through her third day with Crow's caravan, it seemed that every element of the wasteland was conspiring against human life.

Water was a rarity, and the few streams of it that trickled here and there through the parched earth were heavily contaminated with radiation. Rain, a word seldom used and much less experienced first hand, came down in light dustings of acidic sludge to do more harm than good to the already ravaged environment.

The packed earth beneath her boots harbored little nourishment, and the few examples of plant life she'd seen were hardy scrubs that looked more dead than alive, with root systems that extended whole miles in search of water. The trees were charred black, leafless and shriveled, barely good enough even for kindling in a camp fire. Boulders and rockslides stood in place of many hillsides, remnants of the earthquakes caused by the nuclear firestorm of two hundred years past.

The landscape was so uniform and plain that without the landmarks Amber was sure they would have gotten lost by now.

Destroyed tramways and ruined highways dotted the landscape, their rusted and eroded supports thrusting their distraught forms skyward. These, along with other small clusters of desolate buildings, were marked on Crow's various maps as positions to navigate by. Though Amber walked the point position, she followed Crow's directions, shouted out from the rear whenever a change of course was necessary.

She kept her mind focused on checking for threats and watched each step for anything from an unexploded landmine to the telltale signs of a radscorpion lying in wait beneath the sand. Aside from keeping her alive, these continual checks also kept her mind focused firmly on the present, allowing her to avoid the problems of her past and the uncertainties of what lay ahead.

They continued on until the sun started to sink below the horizon, then Crow called out the order to stop and make camp. They pulled off the trail and stopped for the night beneath a ruined bridge. Part of the concrete structure had collapsed near the middle during the nuking, leaving one massive section jutting up out of the dirt. It was below that section, tucked out of sight, that they made camp.

Crow tied the Brahmin, who Amber had come to know as Stevie, up to a piece of rebar that was sticking out of the concrete. "Hoskins, get a fire going," he ordered, giving the animal a reassuring pat on one of its heads.

"I'm on it," the caravan guard replied.

As Hoskins set about gathering dried up sticks for the fire, Crow walked up an incline next to the slab and looked out across the evening horizon. Amber followed him and stood quietly nearby as he sifted through his bundle of maps, careful not to tear the fragile pages as he searched. Finally, he selected one and held it out before him. She watched as he checked the horizon, then his compass, then the map again and again.

Finally, he turned to her. "Well, we're still well north of the standard trading routes of the inner Capital Wasteland, but I suppose I asked for that when I trekked all the way up to Old Olney."

"Olney?" Amber asked. She'd never heard of the place.

"Yeah, it's a little settlement north of even where you lived," Crow said, a sick look coming over his face, "No one had traded with the people living there for a long time. I figured I could reopen the market."

"And?" Amber pressed.

The trader shook his head. "Deathclaws had torn the place apart. Huge gashes where their claws had ripped through the steel defense walls around the perimeter. Blood was smeared across the sidewalks and streets. Besides that, there was nothing left of them," he stopped for a second, "We barely made it out of there. Then we found you."

Silence descended on the two people for a moment. Amber leaned against the concrete, her arms folded across her chest, watching the sunset on the wastes. Crow folded his maps and stuffed them away into the pockets of his armor before turning back to the camp.

"We'll be in Megaton in a couple of days," he told her, "Just as soon as we hop back on the trading routes and make a couple of stops to offload these spiked shoulder pads I've got."

"Where at?" she asked.

Crow shrugged. "The place where spiked shoulder pads are in style: Paradise Falls."

As her new boss moved back down to the camp to give Hoskins grief about not building the fire right, Amber took one last look across the wasteland. She didn't know what or where Paradise Falls was, and she didn't really care to ask. It would be her first contact with any Capital Wasteland citizens since she left Clifftown, but she wasn't worried.

After all, it wasn't like they were slavers or anything.

* * *

Tyler knew his name was Tyler, which brought with it an intelligence rarely seen amongst his kind and therefore gave him a distinct advantage over them. Before he had been turned, he was sure that he had been a scavenger in the city. At least, he was sort of sure about that. In the end, however, Tyler knew that it didn't matter, just like his last name.

He'd sort of left that behind in the swirling depths of the FEV vat, and when he emerged a Super Mutant, he took the transformation in stride. It became quickly apparent that the Super Mutants had no real defined leader, and that their random expeditions into the ruins of downtown DC were totally uncoordinated to the point that Tyler wondered how they were even still alive.

After this realization, he began his takeover of the species, something that was remarkably easy to do when the men around you didn't even know their own names anymore and typically communicated in obscene screams of rage and angry punches. Tyler merely screamed louder and hit harder than the rest of them, eventually beating it into them that he was in charge.

Once he'd gotten them under his control, he set about organizing them into actual teams for smaller unit cooperation. First on the to-do list was establishing a chain of command. He started out using what he remembered of the military ranking system: private, corporal, sergeant, lieutenant, captain and so on, with all the classes and specialist designations that came with them.

However, when implementing this plan, Tyler quickly realized that few of the Super Mutants under his command could even form the syllables of the word lieutenant, captain or sergeant, and that they quickly got lost in all the ranks. Instantly, they all decided that Tyler was stupid and tried to kill him.

Following his second skull-bashing, war-crying establishing of dominance, Tyler reworked the whole system from the ground up, working off of the only thing his brethren seemed to understand: power.

Now, normal foot soldiers didn't have ranks. Instead, they would have to fight and prove that they had earned one, then they were put in charge of a group as a Brute. After that, they could fight their way up to Master and get an even bigger group of Super Mutants to order around. It was there that most of them stayed until they reached the appropriate age to become an Overlord.

Tyler had spent a long time developing the system, and he was proud to say that it worked…for the most part.

The only downside to it was that when a Brute died in the field, the new one was decided by an in-squad melee where the winner took the mantel. But due to the fact that no Super Mutant worth his salt would back down in a fight, these instances almost always ended in only one Super Mutant left in the group, who then proclaimed himself Brute for all of ten seconds before he was put down by a Brotherhood sniper.

Tyler viewed this as a temporary setback, because in all endeavors there was a problem. Of course, Fawkes suggested that he solve the problem by reworking the system to be modeled on the Roman legions.

Stupid Fawkes. What the hell did he know about fighting and winning? Nothing, that's what. He just sat locked up in his stupid room using his stupid big words to talk about his stupid stuff. Tyler should have killed him when he first took over.

But he couldn't do that and he knew it, because as much as Tyler hated to admit it, Fawkes helped him quite a bit. Like Tyler, Fawkes could remember who he had been before being transformed into what he now was. But Fawkes had been turned a long time ago, back when the nukes had just gone off, and as such, he was a bit more intelligent than Tyler.

There were several things that Fawkes could do that Tyler couldn't, ranging from an intricate knowledge of the technology of Vault 87, the Super Mutant's base, to the ability to assist in planning raids into downtown DC in search of the fabled underground FEV factory. Mainly, though, he could read.

That last ability was the constant source of both Tyler's appreciation and aggravation. Tyler could read, but it took him time and hurt his brain. Fawkes, however, could read fine, and had on many occasions deciphered Brotherhood code logs looted from patrols that Tyler's forces had ambushed. These code books had been instrumental in locating and launching attacks on Brotherhood supply points, as well as predicting enemy movements.

But as of late, the Brotherhood had changed their written code to a new set, and although Tyler had secured multiple messages using the new code, Fawkes had refused to decode them. After turning down the request for help, he told Tyler that he wanted an intact, hardback copy of the book Paradise Lost by John Milton.

Tyler had agreed and sent his troops out to get him the book, and in a few days they returned carrying eight thousand burned, scorched, water marked and shredded books in all shapes and sizes stuffed into netted bags. It wasn't until he'd gone through about half the pile to no avail that Tyler's head started to hurt and he decided to execute a new plan: capture humans and ask them where to find the book.

Clifftown had been the first place to experience his new doctrine, and things clearly hadn't gone according to plan. The Brute he'd sent to lead the attack had failed and in the end had killed all but one of the humans living in the shantytown. The patrol had brought the lone survivor back to him, along with the explanation of what had happened.

In the end, Tyler killed the Brute for being stupid, promoted one in its place, interrogated the woman, got nothing but some screaming out of her and ordered his men to add her to the captive pool for dunking once they returned to base.

Now standing alone outside the heavily irradiated entrance to Vault 87 as darkness descended on the wasteland, Tyler put one meaty hand to his face and let out an explosive sigh. This whole endeavor was becoming way more complicated than originally planned.

Stupid Fawkes.

* * *

Amber had, for as long as she could remember, been a light sleeper. Back when she and Joshua had lived in the Pitt, waking on a moment's notice had been an important part of her daily life. After all, if one of the yard bosses came knocking, you either woke before they barged in or were shot on sight. As a result, she very rarely had dreams.

Tonight was no different. And even if she were destined to somehow reach that depth of sleep on an uncomfortable rollout sleeping pallet under a structurally unsound bridge suffering from two hundred years of disrepair, the raiders didn't give her enough time to do so.

She heard them entering the camp at about one in the morning, their footsteps soft as they crept in. Opening one eye, she caught two of them in the light of the dying campfire, their faces covered by a hockey mask and cloth sack respectively. She couldn't clearly make out what they were carrying as weapons, but at least one seemed to be totting a sledgehammer.

Sounds from behind her gave away at least five more sets of feet moving about the outer perimeter of the camp, probably watching for any hostile wildlife that might try to screw over the plan.

Raiders, no matter where one went, were the same kind of people. Amber had seen their handiwork, and knew exactly what kind of fate was in store for herself and her companions if the situation went the raiders' way. Most likely, Crow and Hoskins would be killed right her on the spot, but they would try and take her hostage for things she didn't want to speculate on at the present.

Slowly, Amber brought her leg up and felt around in her boot till she had her hand wrapped around the hilt of the combat knife stashed there. Crow and Hoskins weren't showing any signs of movement, and as the two raiders sifted through their belongings, Amber could even hear the Brahmin snoring. So she didn't really expect any help on this one.

One of the raiders moved from Crow's rucksack over to where she was laying, each step bringing his reeking body odor just that much closer. The raider crouched next to her and ran a hand over her forehead, pushing aside her bangs to get a good look at her face. Through partially closed lids, she saw the raider's grimy face crack into a grin, the dying flames of the fire making him seem impossibly evil.

"Hey Jackhammer!" he whispered, turning around to face his companion, "We got us a looker over here!"

In one swift movement, Amber lashed out from her sleeping bag with her combat knife, the blade flickering bright in the darkness. Skin tore with a ripping sound and the raider fell to the side, screaming as his Achilles tendon was sliced open. Amber sat up and grabbed a Chinese pistol out of a holster on the raider's thigh and brought it in line with his sledgehammer totting companion.

The other raider, Jackhammer, had just recovered from the shock of his friend screaming when Amber fired. The foreign-made pistol barked with a flat sound louder than anything her hunting rifle had ever made, spitting out a 10mm round that blasted a chunk out of Jackhammer's chest. He let out a gasp and stumbled backward even as she fired again. The second shot was followed by two more, the last one finally putting him down for good.

Crow and Hoskins shot up in their beds, each one going for his rifle.

"What the hell-?" Crow started.

"Raiders!" Amber cut him off, rolling over the screaming raider next to her to put something between herself and the reinforcements on the other side of the concrete barrier, "Get ready!"

She steadied her aim on the crippled man's side, holding her new pistol in line with one side of the collapsed section. Crow rolled into a prone shooter's pose, his assault rifle's barrel pointing into the darkness, while Hoskins got behind his rucksack with his double-barreled scattergun.

From the other side of the downed section, Amber could hear a voice call out. "Toby! Jackhammer! You guys okay?"

The man beneath her opened his mouth to respond, but quickly thought better of it when Amber forced the barrel of her pistol into the juncture between his neck and head.

"Say one word," she growled, "I dare you."

"Guys! They go-"

Amber squeezed the trigger and splattered Toby's brains all over the ground behind him. Some of the backsplash hit her in the face, and she had to clear her eyes before getting her aim back to where it had been before the impromptu execution.

"Toby? Toby! You all right?"

Crow cupped one hand around his mouth and shouted back. "Toby and Jackhammer aren't with us anymore! But we would be more than happy to reunite you! Just step right out here and we'll send you on your way! First class!"

Amber disagreed with Crow's calling out of their opponents. She knew what she had heard, and there were at least five men over there as opposed to her group of three. The raiders had the element of surprise on their side, as they could strike from the night against targets that were bathed in light by the campfire, and they had a slight incline giving them the high ground advantage.

So Amber would rather the raiders just stay put behind cover.

Suddenly, five bangs split the night air, all in a row, all originating from the other side of the concrete. Under the current circumstances, they seemed loud enough to have come from an artillery piece. The reports faded away into the distance, the echoes going on for miles and miles before finally fading out for good.

Amber looked back at Crow, who shrugged and threw a glance back to Hoskins. The younger man shook his head. His face held the same question on it that all of them did: What the hell was that?

After a minute of waiting, Crow stood up and started to move toward the Brahmin. Amber followed him, pausing just long enough to pick up her combat shotgun. If something was still alive on the other side of that barrier, she figured the shotgun would be of the most use, especially in the dark and at this close a range.

Crow pulled a flashlight out of one of the packs and turned it on. He passed the beam over a few nearby rocks before handing it to Amber. "You're on point, gunslinger."

"Thanks," she muttered, accepting the flashlight reluctantly.

Shotgun in one hand and flashlight in the other, Amber lead the way up the small incline and around the barrier, peeling back the murk as she went. She rounded the corner all at once, bracing herself for a firefight. Instead, she was greeted with five dead bodies strewn across the area.

Two were sprawled across the dirt, their weapons still gripped in their hands. Another two were tangled together against a boulder where each had apparently been looking around for something. The final raider, however, was slumped against the highway section, his blood splashed across the concrete behind him.

Crow and Hoskins joined her at the top and started checking the corpses. Hoskins rolled one of them over with the tip of his shotgun, revealing an exit wound that had evacuated most of his spinal column.

"Jesus Christ," he muttered.

"What?" Amber asked.

"This is nuts," Hoskins said, "I mean, my shotgun couldn't have put this big a hole in a guy. It must've been something big. Like a .308. And if that's the case, then the guy who did it could be watching us right now from a mile away."

"It wasn't a .308," Crow said, "It was a .44."

Hoskins shook his head. "Magnum? No way. If that's the case, then he'd have had to be pretty close. You see tracks anywhere?"

"No, I don't," Crow admitted, "But I do see a .44 sized entry wound in each of these guys. And by the way the bodies are laid out; he shot them from right inside the group. So whoever he was just left."

"And we owe him one," Amber put in. She knew they couldn't have taken five raiders, so whoever this mystery shooter was, she was in his debt.

"That we do," Crow agreed. Without another word, he headed back for the camp, followed closely by Hoskins.

Amber lingered a second longer, taking one last look at the bodies, before following them back. They'd still be there for looting at dawn, so that wasn't a big worry. She just hoped that if whoever killed them returned that he or she really was a friend.

_To Be Continued_


	4. Chapter 3

_FALLOUT: _**Impact**

Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Slavers

**Chapter 3: Trouble in Paradise**

Unlike most places the caravan had been to since Amber joined up, Paradise Falls was not visible on the horizon from a mile out. In fact, it seemed to sneak up on her and only make its presence known when they had just crested the final rise leading up to where it squatted at the base of a cliff face. A few traders moved about the entrance, and as Crow led the group over to join them, Amber started picking things out about their destination.

Paradise Falls was an interesting settlement from what she could see. It had at one point been an indoor shopping mall of the same name, as declared by the massive sign above what used to be the main building. The roof had long since caved in, and the mall's new inhabitants had constructed wasteland scrap-walls at all the entrance and exit points besides one, creating a single choke point.

And they looked more than capable of defending it, too. As Amber followed Crow into the milling group of traders she got a good look at the fortifications near main entrance: two sandbag pillboxes and sentries manning emplaced .50 caliber machineguns. With one on the right side of the entrance and the other a little further in on the left side, they were placed in the perfect positions to catch attackers in a deadly crossfire.

Behind them the path curved off to one side, blocked from her view by the obstructing steel scrap wall. However, she did get a look at some more of the settlement's inhabitants where they leaned against a ruined Corvega further in. She had expected the men manning the machineguns to be outfitted for a fight, but it seemed that even further in, the citizens were armed to the teeth.

"So what brings you up this way?" she heard one of the traders ask Crow.

"I've got a few shoulder pads to sell," Crow replied, then pointed over his shoulder at the entrance to the old mall, "Hopefully the slavers in there'll be inclined to buy them."

Amber's heart skipped a beat. Paradise Falls was a _slaver_ outpost? And Crow didn't tell her?

"Hoskins, watch Stevie," she instructed.

Reaching out, she grabbed her employer by the shoulder and hauled him out of the group of traders, carefully avoiding several piles of Brahmin shit as she went. Once they were safely out of the way by a worn and tattered billboard, she let him go.

"What's your problem?" he asked.

Amber crossed her arms and glared at him. "My problem is you."

"Me?" he said, "What did I do?"

"You didn't say anything about trading with slavers," she said.

"So what? Their caps are just as good as anyone else's, and they buy en masse. So there isn't any problem unless," his voice trailed off as he thought about it for a second. Then his eyes widened as the implications of her behavior hit him. "Oh shit. You were a-"

"Yeah," Amber replied, "Since I was a kid back in the Pitt. Roll up my right sleeve and you can still see the brand."

Crow's mouth twisted into a frown as he thought this over. Amber watched him as he pulled out a pack of cigarettes and lit one, his hands steady like a rock. He took a long draw off the tobacco stick, running through a good portion of the thing in one go.

"You're pissed, aren't you?" she asked.

Crow shook his head. "No, everybody has a past. I'm a little agitated that you didn't tell me this straight out, but I suppose that's forgivable. But it does complicate things."

"No kidding," she agreed, "I can't very well go in there now. Not with all those slavers."

"Yes you can. You were a slave in the Pitt, but this is the Capital Wasteland. No one here should recognize you," he replied, "But just to be on the safe side, let me do the talking."

Amber had no problem with that. Besides, she hadn't figured on doing much talking anyway. "What about Hoskins?"

"He'll stay here and watch Stevie."

"Why don't I watch Stevie?"

Crow laughed. "What if things go south in there? Do you really think I want Little Miss Butterfingers watching my back?" he said, "Hell no. Hoskins watches the Brahmin, you come with me."

"Fine," Amber huffed, "But I still don't like it. When're we going in?"

"Right now. Grab one shoulder pad for a sample and meet me at the front door," Crow said, "Let's see if we can't make a sell."

* * *

Hoskins got one of the spiked shoulder pads out of a pack on Stevie and handed it to Amber. "I don't get it."

"Don't get what?" Amber asked, examining the item in her hand. It was made out of shaped steel and was covered in two inch spikes. It had a leather strap to hold it on the wearer's shoulder by running across the chest and under the opposite armpit. This way, someone could wear two of them if they were so inclined. It was a fine piece of equipment if one didn't like getting attacked from behind.

"Why I'm staying with the Brahmin," Hoskins went on, "I've been with Crow longer, so what the hell?"

"Tell me about it," Amber replied.

Without another word, she headed up to the front pillbox, instantly drawing the attention of both .50 caliber machineguns. She stopped without protest, one foot still in the air, and looked at the closer of the two sentries.

"Can't let you in unless you got business in here," he said.

"And I suppose you get to decide what that business is, huh?" Amber shot back.

"Precisely."

Amber held up the shoulder pad. "My boss is a guy named Crow. He's already in there selling a bundle of these," she indicated the shoulder pad, "I'm just delivering the sample."

"I'd like her to take my sample," she heard the other sentry say.

"Shut the fuck up, Charlie!" the first sentry snapped over his shoulder. When he looked back to Amber, his cheeks were flushed, "You'll have to excuse my friend. He's a fucking idiot."

Amber shrugged. "It happens."

The sentry laughed. "I like a girl with a sense of humor," he said, letting the aim of his machinegun drop to the dirt, "Welcome to Paradise Falls. Enjoy your stay."

Amber thanked him and headed past the pillboxes, throwing the shoulder pad over the top of her current one. She'd left her rucksack back on Stevie and besides her armor was only weighed down by her weapons. Her hunting rifle was slung across her back, balancing out her combat shotgun where it hung under her right arm.

The latter was, for all intents and purposes, ready to kill something at a moment's notice. Its barrel was pointing in front of her and her hand was already on the stock, finger mere inches from the trigger. Her combat knife was securely tucked in her right boot, and the Chinese pistol she'd obtained the night before was holstered further up on the same leg.

If the shit hit the fan, Amber felt sure that she would walk out of it alive. Wounded, maybe, but alive. Then she spotted Crow at the entrance to the main slaver complex and tried to push the thoughts of confrontation from her mind.

"Hey," he greeted her, a grin on his face, "They said we could meet with Eulogy."

"Who's that?" she asked.

"He's the guy in charge of all the slavers based out of Paradise Falls," Crow answered, "He's a very powerful man."

As Crow led the way in through the double doors, Amber wondered if, from her standpoint, meeting such an important slaver could really be a good thing.

* * *

"So, my friend," Ymir said in his thick Russian accent, "How much longer will you be with us here in glorious Capital Wasteland?"

Lukas Stipes finished pouring what remained of the whiskey into a glass, set the bottle down on the bar and knocked back the glass. He gulped the flaming liquid down without any noticeable effort, a testament to how high a tolerance he had for pain.

"It depends, Ymir," he replied, already hailing the bartender for another bottle.

"On what?"

Stipes smiled as he uncorked the new bottle and poured two glasses, one for him and one for Ymir. "On how long it takes Eulogy to get those slaves for me. Then I'll be heading back to the Pitt."

"Then you might be here long time," Ymir grinned, showing a broken set of yellow teeth.

"Yeah, I know Eulogy has a couple of…distractions in there with him," Stipes said.

He pushed one of the glasses over to Ymir, who caught it in his steel-plated fist. "To good friends, strong drink, and loads of money!" the Russian descendant declared, thrusting his glass into the air.

"My thoughts exactly," Stipes agreed, not bothering to mention that Ymir had already made the same toast eight times since they'd started drinking.

Their glasses clinked and both of them shot the whiskey down. Stipes could taste the unusually high water content, and was about to yell at the bartender for a replacement bottle when Ymir beat him to it.

"Hey, mother fucker!" Ymir shouted, throwing the glass aside, "What're you trying to pull?"

The bartender looked up from where he was sweeping the floor. "What?"

"The fuck do you mean what?" Ymir hopped across the bar, landing on the opposite side in a fighter's stance. He pulled the super sledge that he totted around off his back and swung it once, pounding the ground to get his point across. "You fucking watered down my drink! And I hate it, when somebody waters down _my_ drink!"

The bartender dropped his broom and held his hands up to surrender, but the super sledge was already in the air. Stipes looked away as the blood from the bartender's crushed head washed across the countertop.

"Whew," Ymir said, slinging his weapon again. He reached down and pulled three more bottles of whiskey from a cooler behind the bar and sat them on the counter. "Teach him to be fucking with me."

Stipes laughed. "Hey, could you get me another glass?" he asked, "This one's got blood in it."

"Yes, but it is not watered down blood, huh?" Ymir said, breaking into a laughing fit.

Stipes shook his head and looked back across the courtyard. Several slavers were milling about at the tables, playing cards and telling each other vulgar jokes. Beyond that, across the small path that bisected Paradise Falls, was Eulogy's residence. Two people were standing outside, one of them a guy in a ball cap chatting up the door guard. The other was a woman, standing to one side in leather armor with hair so auburn it verged on purple.

"Looks like Eulogy has himself new distraction, eh?" Ymir said, elbowing Stipes in the arm, "Now, try this drink."

Stipes accepted the offered glass without looking away from the woman. Something about her hair stood out in his mind, like he remembered her from somewhere. Even from just seeing the back of her head Stipes got the feeling that he'd met her before. He was right in the middle of developing the little itch of a memory he had into a full remembrance when he swallowed whatever Ymir had given him.

Immediately, he coughed it back up. "What the fuck was that?" he shouted.

Ymir laughed thick, deep, and hearty. "That was true whiskey, my friend! The way we make it back home!"

"That was fucking pure alcohol!" Stipes protested, wiping the remnants of the acid off his lips.

"Like I said," Ymir said, still laughing, "_True whiskey!_"

Stipes looked back to Eulogy's front door, where the woman had turned around at the commotion. Their eyes locked, and in that instant, Stipes recognized her: that little bitch from the Pitt. The one who always got stuck on Ingot detail. The one with the smart assed husband who always tried to joke with the slavers.

But most importantly, she was the one that escaped.

* * *

Amber recognized Stipes immediately. She'd seen him rifle butt her friends too many times to not instantly realize who he was, and as he pushed himself off the barstool and started across the courtyard toward her, she wondered just what to do.

A few ideas quickly formed in her head, first and foremost of which involved the combat shotgun beneath her right arm. However, that avenue ended in the rest of the slavers filling her full of holes. Or maybe they wouldn't, instead accepting her as more of a badass because she killed him in a fight.

But there was a slim chance of that, so first she'd try and sort it out in a conversation.

"Hey bitch," Stipes said as he walked up.

_Great start_, she thought. She was just about to respond when Crow beat her to it.

"I'm sorry. Can I help you?" he asked, one hand moving close to the stock of his assault rifle.

Stipes glanced at Crow. "Yeah, you can give me back my fucking slave."

"This chick's a slave?" the door guard asked.

"No," Crow told the guard. Then he looked back at Stipes. "Mister, you've got it all wrong. She isn't a slave; she's an employee of mine."

"Bullshit. She's from the Pitt. Escaped four or five years back with her husband," Stipes said, looking to Amber, "How is he, your hubbie?"

Amber felt her eyes narrowing. "I don't have a husband," she said. Well, she supposed that was true enough.

"What's all this commotion about?" asked a new voice.

Amber, along with everyone else on the porch, looked over at the appearance of Eulogy Jones. He was wearing silk sleepwear and a bathrobe, and despite all of it still managed to look dangerous. He held no weapon, but the slave girl that had exited along with him looked like she would be more than proficient with the sawed off shotgun she totted.

"Eulogy, this bitch belongs to Ashur!" Stipes said, "Have her roll up her right sleeve and you'll see!"

The mega slaver looked Amber up and down, eyes carefully assessing every part of her, checking for any physical deformities or aspects that might hinder her laboring prowess, while also admiring her 'womanly' features. It was a look every slaver inherently possessed and she knew it well, another fact that he had probably picked out.

"I don't doubt it," Eulogy said, "Ma'am, were you? Don't hesitate to tell the truth."

Amber was reluctant to do so, but something in Eulogy's eyes told her that it was okay. Besides, the conversation wasn't really going her way anyway. In the end, she simply nodded in the affirmative.

"Ha! I knew it!" Stipes shouted. He reached into his pocket and started pulling out an old set of handcuffs. "Now turn around, sister. You're coming back with me."

"No she's not," Eulogy said, staying Stipes with a wave of his hand.

The Pitt native was stunned. "What do you mean she's not?"

"I've talked with Ashur before, and it is my feeling that he would reward this woman with freedom for her actions. After all, she did earn it," Eulogy explained, "However, it is your right as a slaver to try and take her back, but you will get no assistance from the men and women of Paradise Falls. In other words, the matter is between the two of you. No one here will intervene."

Amber took the message, wheeled around on her heel and squeezed the trigger on her combat shotgun.

The pellet spread slammed into Stipes's exposed gut, tearing flesh and muscle as the bits of steel entered his body. The blast knocked him backward to land on his ass, blood leaking from the twenty-some-odd holes in his stomach. Screaming, he dropped the handcuffs and grabbed his ruined gut, sticking his fingers in the openings to stop the blood flow.

He looked up and met Amber's second blast at point blank range in the face. His skull broke into a thousand pieces, letting loose a tide of blood that cascaded down his chest like a waterfall. His headless corpse tipped forward, slumping down until his neck fountained directly into the dirt.

"Well, I'm glad that's finished," Eulogy said, "Congratulations on your continued freedom, my dear. Now, Crow, I believe you wanted to see me?"

"Uh, yes," the trader said, shaking his eyes away from the murdered slaver.

"Well, step right in," Eulogy offered, motioning inside. As Crow started in, the slaver boss looked to the door guard. "Get this mess cleaned up."

As the guard went about scraping Stipes off the path and Eulogy retreated inside with Crow, Amber was left alone. She was about to go have a look around when a voice called out to her.

"Hey! Woman who did the killing of Stipes! Over here!"

Amber looked over at the food court where a large Russian man was leaning against the bar, gesturing for her to come over to him. When she obliged the request, she found that he was standing with a row of shot glasses arrayed before him.

"Hello, I am Ymir," he said, "I was a friend of Stipes."

Amber shrugged. "That sucks."

The man named Ymir laughed. "I like you! You have sense of humor!" he exclaimed, picking up a glass, "Here, you and I be doing shots today."

Amber picked up one of the glasses and clinked it with Ymir's, then knocked it back. It burned like hell and seemed to be mixed with irradiated battery acid, but damn it was good. She set the glass back down and reached for another one, which for some reason made Ymir laugh and clap her roughly on the shoulder.

Paradise Falls was alright.

_To Be Continued_


End file.
